For many years cable service providers have been in existence providing cable television to millions of subscribers in the United States and around the world. Cable television has become so ubiquitous that the set top box is almost instantly recognizable to the entire American population. Generally, a set top box works by hooking the set top box via a short coaxial (coax) cable into a coax outlet. The coax outlet is generally placed either during the construction of the building, or by the cable company during installation. If the coax outlet is placed during construction of the building, it is likely that there will be a coax outlet in many of the rooms. However, if the outlets are placed during installation, the installer may charge more for each outlet installed, thus forcing the owner to effectively perform a cost-benefit analysis. The coax outlet then typically connects via coax cable to a distribution hub, which often serves several different subscribers.
Wireless technologies have developed quickly over the past few years, enabling enormous amounts of data to be pumped through a wireless connection. The Institute for Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) 802.11b standard enables the user to transfer data at a rate approximately equal to ethernet data rates, about 10 Mbps. As such it is sometimes called wireless ethernet. IEEE 802.11a enables transfer rates of up to 54 Mbps. An industry collaboration, Bluetooth 2.0 enables users to transfer data at a rate of about 10 Mbps. HomeRF 2.0 is another industry collaboration, backed by a few of the same companies promoting the Bluetooth standard, and like Bluetooth 2.0, has a maximum data transfer rate of about 10 Mbps.
Internet video conferencing developed during the same time period, allowing video transfer over the Internet. Early Internet video conferencing tools used very low quality video, enabling early networks to transfer video. However, technology advances have increased bandwidths, allowing video conferencing tools to become more complex. These video conferencing tools are useful in the business world, where subscribers do not have high expectations when it comes to video quality, synchronization, jitter and latency between encoding and viewing, all of which exist in present video conferencing systems to some extent. However, when it comes to entertainment, subscriber demands are much higher because of the vast array of high quality home entertainment already in the marketplace. These problems cannot be solved by forcing subscribers to lower their expectations, because of the enormous number of other choices providing high quality home entertainment solutions. Thus, there exists a heretofore unaddressed need in the industry.